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Tag: recycling

Earth Day 2016

Cindy2 Comments

Happy Earth Day! April 22, 2016 is the 46th year of celebrating Earth Day. Earth Day is not just about one day a year but rather to bring focus on our Earth and keep it going all year long. Whether you are planting a tree, attending a rally, picking up litter, recycling materials or bringing awareness to our precious Earth in some other way, the key is to DO something.

As they say, every little bit helps and our Earth needs every one of us to do our part. If you are a long time reader of this blog, you know I love to recycle materials and use them to create new and useful items. I recycle plastic bags, plastic packaging, t-shirts, old linens, cassette and video tapes, and denim jeans. I also reclaim yarn from old sweaters and repurpose plastic lids, rings and old purse handles. I try and do my part which I know is a small thing and again when we all do a little, it can make a big difference.

So on this Earth Day 2016, try recycling, repurposing, or reusing something. If you need ideas, I have free tutorials and patterns on how to use many different recycled materials on my blog. If you have questions,

Audio Tape Reels

Cindy5 Comments

Earlier this year someone sent me several vintage audio tape reels. I had never crafted with this type of film tape before and was excited to give it a try. I figured the tape would be similar to vcr video tape or cassette tape when I crocheted with it.

The tape from vcr and cassette tapes is strong and a bit stretchable. You can crochet and knit with the recycled material without it breaking very often. The material while strong is still flexible enough to create many different recycled video tape projects and cassette tape items. Unfortunately this was not the case with these old audio tapes.

My first attempt at crocheting with the tapes resulted in the tape strand breaking almost immediately. I could only crochet a stitch or two before one of the tapes broke. I typically crochet with two strands of recycled tape as it provides a more durable product. I tried one strand, I tried two strands, I tried adding a strand of yarn for stability, and nothing worked.

Recycling Toilet Paper Packaging

Cindy2 Comments

I’m always looking for new ways to recycle and repurpose plastic waste such as this large toilet paper packaging. When I see something like this plastic I just want to find some useful way to reuse it. So I set out to create plastic yarn or plarn from this piece of packaging.

Because this plastic packaging is very large, I cut it into one continuous long strip about 1 inch wide. I started at the one opened end of the packaging to begin cutting. I placed the piece of plastic across my leg and used the scissors to cut around and around. I just kept cutting the strip around the plastic and through the seams. The seams on this packaging are very strong and glued so I believe it will hold for crafting without having to worry about the seams coming apart.

The result is one ball of plarn that netted 45 yards of yarn for crafting.

Recycled Kleenex Box Gift Tags

Cindy9 Comments


Here are some gift tags I made from a pretty Kleenex box I had. The box was just so cute that I wanted to recycled the cardboard into something useful so I got out my tag die cutter. I cut as many tags as I could from the panels of the box and then used a hole punch to put a hole into the top of the tags. I used scrap yarn and some leather strips for ties to finish off my gift tags.


Here is one other set of gift tags I cut from another Kleenex box. The bottom had some plain white so I cut out a few of those to show you that with some pretty yarn, they make great gift tags too. For the other tags, I used pieces of plarn (plastic bag yarn) for my ties.

This is a really quick and easy project that you and the kids can both enjoy. Let the kids cut strips of yarn or other recycled materials for the ties and voilà — you have yourself some cute and free gift tags.

Orange Crush Plarn Purse

Cindy7 Comments


This week I present my latest recycled plastic bag project. I call this my orange crush plarn purse. The purse was crocheted using orange newspaper bags and white plastic grocery bags. You can check out my plarn making tutorials that show how to make the bags into a yarn from either newspaper or plastic retail bags. The base was made using just the recycled bags from orange newspaper delivery sleeves. I then crocheted with two strands of plarn held together — one strand orange and one white. This combination created the orange and white color blend for the main body of the purse which was crocheted using a granny stitch.

Next I added a beautiful pair of purse handles that I picked up from my local thrift store. I was so excited to purchase these brand new, still in the package, handles for just 99 cents. The black handles just added a great final touch to the purse.

This cute purse crochet pattern can be found free over at Debi’s Hooks and Yarns blogspot. I modified her pattern by working 10 rounds in the granny stitch as I needed just a bit more height for my purse. Debi crocheted her bag using two strands of worst weight yarn so you can change up this pattern pretty easily depending on if you want to use plarn, yarn, or even tarn (t-shirt yarn).

Until next time, happy crafting and make it a great day!